WASHINGTON — The intruders on Eric and Linda White’s street have grown bold, stalking quietly from yard to yard in broad daylight. When interrupted, they slip through the barricade at the end of the street and disappear into Rock Creek Park.

The interlopers — white-tailed deer that venture from the park to gorge in yards — are more than just a nuisance. The deer endanger the park itself, according to the National Park Service, which is poised to take a step that has heartened some residents and dismayed others: thinning the herd with sharpshooters.

The strategy, which the park service is expected to authorize in coming weeks after years of study, has been a source of acrimony. Some residents accuse the service of dragging its feet. Others complain that sharpshooters are a needlessly cruel solution to the deer problem. In 2009, the problem generated impassioned debate at public hearings and hundreds of written comments dissecting the service’s proposals.

Rock Creek Park, a swath of rolling hills, ravines and towering forests that bisects the city, is not the only national park where the service has opted to use sharpshooters, and the Department of Agriculture has used them at the United States National Arboretum on the city’s eastern edge.

Linda White, 62, is unsentimental about the problem. Ravenous deer have forced her and her husband to erect mesh barricades, lay down netting and spend thousands of dollars on new landscaping.

“I think they need to totally get rid of the deer now,” she said. “I don’t care how they do it. Whatever it takes. By any means necessary.”

Nick Bartolomeo, the chief ranger for the park, said reducing the herd had little to do with its encounters with humans. Rather, the concern is the threat the deer pose to their environment.

Because of the animals’ grazing, the forest is unable to regenerate. As wind and age topple the massive oaks, hickories and poplars that make up the canopy, or overstory, no young trees survive to replace them. At the same time, the deer leave alone many of the invasive species in the park.

“This will be a very different park in 30, 40 or 50 years,” Mr. Bartolomeo said. “The overstory trees that you have now won’t be there. The animal species that depend on the understory and those trees won’t be there. It’s going to change the entire nature of the park.”

The park service considered a range of strategies, including taking no new action, sterilizing deer, and shooting them or capturing them to euthanize them. It settled on a combined approach that includes several tactics but emphasizes the lethal means.

The issue is common where deer thrive alongside heavily developed areas. Local governments in Maryland and Virginia also cull their deer with hunts and sharpshooters.

Photo

Linda White and her husband have spent thousands of dollars to shield their yard in Washington from the deer.Credit
Stephen Crowley/The New York Times

There were virtually no deer in Rock Creek Park until as recently as the 1960s, when sightings began to increase. Suburban development most likely forced the deer into the park from Maryland, and an absence of predators — other than cars — allowed the herd to swell.

The park service began monitoring the animals’ impact in 1990. Today, it estimates that there are almost 400 deer in the park, and conflicts have become inevitable. Dozens of deer are killed yearly in collisions with cars. In 2009, a deer wandered into the lion enclosure at the National Zoo in front of crowds of children and horrified parents. Several weeks ago, a deer crashed through a window of a public library branch in the city. In both cases, the wounded animals were euthanized.

But the most typical interactions have forced exasperated homeowners to reach into their bank accounts to restore their landscaping, flower beds and gardens.

Fences have become an essential backyard barricade. Homeowners spray lion urine on their plants and string bells from the trees. Some have advocated opening the park to hunting, but federal law forbids it.

So the job of culling the deer will fall to the professionals. It is not yet clear exactly when the cull would take place, because financing is still an issue — about $131,000 in the first year alone. When it does, it is expected to be done at night by government sharpshooters, who would pick off the deer drawn to bait stations placed away from residential neighborhoods.

The goal is to reduce the herd to 60 to 80 deer over three years. The meat will be donated to local food banks.

Steven Courtney, 44, a lawyer who lives a block from the park, said that he took the service at its word that there were too many deer, but that he was worried about sharpshooters. Picnickers linger after dark, homeless people live in the woods, and people walk and bike through the park at night, he said.

“You’re telling the people in the immediate proximity about the sharpshooting that will take place,” he said. “What about the bystanders who are coming from elsewhere, from Maryland or Virginia? They’re not going to necessarily have knowledge of that.”

Wildlife groups have lined up in opposition. John Hadidian, senior scientist for wildlife at the Humane Society of the United States and a former park service employee, called the plan an “off-the-shelf deer management approach.” He said he was disappointed that the service had not considered reproductive control more seriously and avoided sharpshooting altogether.

“We were hopeful that they would come up with something that was more innovative,” he said.

Mr. Bartolomeo said that culling was the only viable strategy, and that every safety precaution would be taken. It took so long to come up with a plan because the service has to follow protocols; developing a science-based solution takes years, and at this point, anything short of sharpshooters would delay action to preserve the park.

“We don’t have the luxury of time,” Mr. Bartolomeo said.

Anu Jayaraman, 33, brought her 2-year-old son, Manu, to the park’s nature center on a recent afternoon. On their outings, they sometimes come specifically to look for deer, she said, and often spot them as they walk the trails around the center.

She balked at the thought of shooting the deer, saying perhaps contraception would be a better way. But she acknowledged that she was not aware of the damage the deer caused.

“It doesn’t sound very kind, but if the population has to be managed, and they’re good marksmen, it’s a solution,” she said.

A version of this article appears in print on February 29, 2012, on page A18 of the New York edition with the headline: A Surplus Washington Could Do Without: A Capital Park’s Rapacious Deer. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe